


Don't Call It a Spade If It Isn't a Spade

by whirlpool



Category: The 1975 (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Non-explicit mutual handjobs, Some marijuana and alcohol usage/allusions, basically George and Matty are best friends and everyone thinks they have sex but they don't, up until they do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-09 13:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1984857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whirlpool/pseuds/whirlpool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matty and George were the world's most perfect couple, save for the fact that they weren't actually dating each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever bandfic, ahhh! I apologize for any inaccuracies.

Matty and George were the world's most perfect couple, save for the fact that they weren't actually dating each other.

Oh, sure, they lived in the same flat and argued over grocery bills until George finally challenged Matty to try and cook for a week and Matty somehow set fire to the oatmeal and the smoke detector wouldn't stop ringing even after George had removed the batteries, so Matty stood on a chair and hit the ceiling with an oatmeal-covered wooden spoon until the alarm stopped. And sure, they shared a bed, but it was only to save money and space because honestly, where else would all the keyboards and guitar cases go? Saving money was also the reason why they shared clothes, despite the fact that they were visibly different sizes and George's jeans pooled around Matty's ankles and Matty's shirts barely even buttoned closed on George. And yes, they had decorated their flat together and picked out a china set and took three hours to buy curtains because George wanted creme-coloured curtains that matched the carpet because that was what normal people did, dammit, but Matty insisted on juxtaposing the curtains with the dour aesthetic of their dark furniture, and neither of them budged until the manager informed them that the store was closing and forced them to make a decision. (Matty walked out triumphantly with the floral print curtains under his arm.)

Nobody would believe you if you told them that Matty and George were not, in fact, dating. They would laugh at you and remind you that George made homemade chicken noodle soup when Matty got his skinny-boy colds, and did both their washing after The Incident of '07 when Matty turned everything pink, and beat the living daylights out of the poor bloke who decided to pick a bar fight with Matty. They would slap their knees and chortle and mock your naïveté and innocence, until they saw Matty buying lingerie for a girlfriend, or heard George on the phone, planning a date.

Of course, it was hard to date Matty. It was also hard to date George. Mostly because they were such an inseparable unit that most girls forgot which one they were actually dating. Plus there was the One Bed Situation. One would sleep on the couch if the other brought a girl home, but would inevitably forget something in the bedroom and come scuttling in to grab a phone charger or hair brush or lighter, much to the chagrin of their most likely naked guest.

Gemma was Number 18 of Hot Supermodel Chicks That Matty Liked to Date Because He Liked Their Long Legs and Their Cheekbones and just models, man. They were so hot.

Gemma liked Matty, she really did. She liked the way his eyes went all squinty when he laughed and the way his hair felt in her hands and oh god, the things his fingers could do. She didn't think guitarists' hands would be too nice on account of all their callouses, but Matty. Yeah, Matty knew how to use those fingers.

Gemma liked the way Matty took her to fancy restaurants where the waiters bowed before fetching you silk napkins, the way he joked like they'd known each other for years, the way he kissed her under the amber glow of the streetlight, the smell of red wine and aftershave and clean hair, just the two of them in the cool dark of an autumn night and no one else.

No one else, that is, but George. There he was, with that stupid dopey grin, cutting a shadow in their romantic amber light, like a tree. A cheerful, six foot, four inch tree that offered to start running a hot bath for them back at the flat.

To be perfectly honest, Gemma preferred to take Matty to hers; she just couldn't get in the mood to properly fuck when she knew George was somewhere in the next room, brewing some tea and reading a book while waiting to use the shower. It felt too weird to wake up to Matty holding two mugs of coffee -- one for her, and one for George, who, to his credit, never complained about having to sleep on the couch but did move with considerable stiffness in the morning, until Matty declared that he'd never seen a sorrier sight in his life and started massaging George's back at the breakfast table.

* * *

Gemma had her suspicions -- actually just one suspicion, the Matty and George are in Fact Completely Gay and Fucking Each Other When I'm not Looking Suspicion, so she decided to consult the two people who knew them best.

"Nah, it's totally cool," Ross assured her as he smothered his pancakes with syrup from a container that looked suspiciously like a beer bottle. "That's just the way they are. Matty's really into you. Talks about you all the time. Want some pancakes?"

"He was _massaging George's back_ this morning," insisted Gemma. "I don't even remember the last time he massaged _my_ back." She also couldn't remember a time when Matty sat through a movie without texting George, or told a story that didn't involve George, or wore glasses without George taking them off and cleaning them on his own t-shirt and scolding Matty for being such a slob, but he was a slob with a golden voice, so it was alright.  

"George does have a bad back," said Adam thoughtfully, swiping the syrup bottle and pouring a much healthier amount onto his own plate.

"What if it's all just a front?" Gemma insisted. "Be honest with me. How many times have they gotten drunk and made out?"

"Oh, come on," sighed Ross. "It's not like that at all."

"There was that one time at Pete's house," mused Adam.

"Yeah, the _one time_ ," Ross retorted.

"And that night when we snuck into the lot next to the old theatre."

"Okay, we were all pretty smashed that night. If I recall correctly, _you_ made out with a lamp post."

"Plus that time we played Truth or Dare..."

"Dares are different, man," interjected Ross. "You're not really helping me here."

Adam shrugged and went back to his pancakes.

"Jeeezus..." breathed Gemma. "I'm the side chick!" Sure, she was the one with the vagina, but George was the one who sewed up his ripped jeans at the knee. George was the one who buttered his toast and cut his steaks. George was his permanent designated driver. George finished his sentences. George was his fucking _soulmate._

Gemma grabbed her keys and darted towards the door.

"But they're not gay!" Ross yelled after her.

"Maybe a little gay," said Adam, quieter.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Gemma decided to do it with a phone call, because Matty was a very sensitive soul and would probably cry and George would have to console him with tea and homemade biscuits and would glare at her as if she had just stolen a puppy from its mother and kicked it repeatedly, and Gemma just couldn't deal with that right now.

Personally, she thought the call went better than expected. She told Matty it was over, he cried a bit, there was static, and then George started yelling at her over the phone, and then she hung up. But all things considered, it could have been worse.

Matty, however, did not deal with it quite so well.

George made him a cuppa and sat him down on the couch and put an arm around his shoulder and told him that there were plenty of fish in the sea, and that Matty was a wonderful and creative fish with shiny iridescent scales and would have no problem finding another beautiful girl fish in the ocean of life. Then he lit a joint for him because weed obviously fixed broken hearts.

Matty valiantly tried to smoke, but ended up choking on his own snot until he got hiccups and George had to fetch a glass of cold water and pat him on the back and tell him to hold his breath and count to ten.

George's words seemed to offer no comfort, which was very disconcerting, especially since George's Fish in an Ocean Metaphor had worked for the previous seventeen break-ups.

"I think I'm gay," Matty finally choked out, having recovered from his hiccups spell. He was now eating ice cream straight from the tub while George rubbed his feet and kept murmuring things about underwater creatures in a salty, salty sea.  "I think we're a couple, George. A gay couple."

Oh. This happened every four break-ups or so: a girl would leave, Matty would declare that he must be gay and that George must take him in a manly fashion, and then he would drink red wine straight from the bottle until George made him brush his teeth and go to bed.

"We're mates, Matthew. We are not a couple," George began.

"We _sleep together_ ," Matty interrupted. 

"That's to save money," George replied pointedly. "And it's not like anything happens in bed. Did Gemma bring this up?"

 

Matty ignored him. "We _spoon_ ," he intoned. "And you're the big spoon. You're always the big spoon."

"We spoon," admitted George. "But that doesn't make us gay. Sucking each other's dicks would make us gay. We don't suck each other's dicks, do we? "

"But I've seen your dick," Matty argued.

That was a moot point for George, considering that they had all seen Hann's dick in the Infamous Hand Towel Incident, and Ross wasn't exactly modest when he got wildly drunk, which was about every other night, and Matty liked to sleep naked in the summer, so basically they had all seen each other's dicks at one point or another.

"But you haven't sucked it," George specified.

"I licked it once."

"The first and last time you took ecstasy," George noted.

Matty sprawled dramatically back across the couch, hair falling onto his forehead and across his eyes. "You've donated blood to me. Your blood is _in my veins_ , George."

"That's only because we happen to have the same blood type. And you are an idiot with a bike. And you are _not_ gay, for chrissakes, you like girls, mate, hot girls, girls with curly blonde hair--"

"Look at yourself, George," Matty moaned. "You dyed your hair. It's not even naturally blond. You dyed your hair _for me_. Because we're gay."

It soon became apparent that Matty could not be convinced otherwise, and began explaining how George was his stereotypical bad boy who corrupted him with drugs and alcohol ("I think it's the other way around," George said dryly) and how they would have to pack their meager belongings and skip town to escape the clutches of a judgmental and homophobic community and take a ferry to across the English Channel to France, and rename themselves Pierre and Jean-Claude, and Matty (Jean-Claude) would become a painter and grow a mustache and George (Pierre) would start a restaurant and be an egotistical chef and Matty (Jean-Claude) would show up unannounced in nothing but a painter's frock, and blow George (Pierre) in the supply closet, but then the crepes would catch on fire and the restaurant would burn down and they would have to descend into a life of crime and debauchery to support themselves and oh god, would they ever see their families again?

"Let's do it then," George said. "And settle the issue once and for all." 

 

Matty frowned. "What, go to France? _Now?_ " 

 

"No," sighed George. "I mean..."

 

Matty sat up and looked at him expectantly, and George really, _really_ wished that Matty didn't look at him like that, wished that his lips weren't so pink and his hair wasn't so soft, that he didn't wear those stupid women's dress shirts completely unbuttoned, that his laugh wasn't so fucking contagious and sweet and...

 

Ah, screw it. 

 

"Let's fuck," said George. 


	3. Chapter 3

They had barely made it into the bedroom before Matty tripped on a wire from an amp, and George had to pick him up and carry him to the bed like a bride being lifted over the threshold of a new home, and then any similarity ended there because George dumped him rather unceremoniously onto the sheets, and Matty felt the wind knocked out of him for the second time in under twenty seconds.

They messily kissed for a few moments, wordless and out of breath, and then George ran to the bathroom to find a condom. When he returned, Matty remembered that he had no lube, and okay, maybe he had panicked _a little_ when he saw George holding that box of XXL condoms, not that George was a freak down there or anything, it was all just proportional to his body ("On the tall side of average, Matthew." "You're A GIANT!"). Matty just thought maybe they could...work their way up to that.

George didn't mind. He was quite content to lie next to Matty and wiggle closer until they were nose to nose and giggling like virgins, and hmm, yep, they were definitely still feeling the hits from that joint. Matty stuck his hand down George's pants and George stuck his hand down Matty's, and everything was good.

Everything was more than good, actually.

It was fucking _amazing_.

"How have we not tried this before?" George marveled after they'd both come and were lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling fan.

It had taken ten years, _ten fucking years_ , of shared beds and drunken snogs, naked encounters in the bathroom and borrowed clothes, late nights watching telly and cuddling on the couch, surreptitious morning woods and...wow, okay, maybe the clues had been there all along.

"I have no idea," said Matty, in awe. That was, without a doubt, the best sex he'd ever had in his life. And they'd only just begun. "Shit, man, we've been missing out all this time."

"I guess that means we'd better catch up."

* * *

Three hours later, the issue had definitely been settled.

After that, it was merely a matter of breaking the news to others.

Ross looked at the two of them for a long time, then shook his head as if to say, "Who would've thought?" Then he actually said, "Who would've thought?" because Ross didn't know how to let a gesture speak for itself.

Hann merely smirked and said, "About time."

George's mum started crying over the phone and asked if it was because she didn't hold him enough as a baby or because she kept the crib in her room for too long, and then they heard his father yell in the background, "Oh my god, Shirley! Who cares if he sticks his dick in another bloke's ass?", and then they quickly hung up.

Denise wanted to throw a coming out party, with a rainbow cake and rainbow balloons, and she was practically halfway done making rainbow invitations before Matty could communicate that a party was the exact opposite of what he wanted. Louis said, "Cool." And that was that.

  
Life continued as it had before, minus the girlfriends, plus the fucking. Matty still left unfinished mugs of tea and coffee around the flat, and George still turned up the air conditioning way too high, and they still argued over utility bills, but at the end of the day, George warmed up raisins in the oven for Matty, and Matty massaged out George's bad back, and they wrote some damn good music in between.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been fun writing this! Thanks for reading!


End file.
